I agree it’s not the tightest of writing but it’s a little confusing how you can think the subplots don’t come together. Three of them literally converge in the last episode, each providing a crucial piece to the other.
I'm exaggerating a bit, sure, but I feel like there's a difference between the characters of the various subplots meeting each other and the subplots themselves, as in the stories (or at least their overarching themes), actually tying into each other in a harmonious way. Galadriel's motivation throughout the season is to find and defeat Sauron. That's why she travels to the Southlands - but from her perspective, the trip is basically a red herring, as neither Sauron nor his allies turn out to be there. Instead, Galadriel just kind of gets roped into the separate subplot of Arondir and Bronwyn's struggle against Adar and the orcs. Later, when Galadriel brings Halbrand to the elves, she's simply doing so to save his life, and from there she, once again, just kind of gets roped into the separate subplot involving the mithril. The resolution of her own ultimate motivation of finding Sauron, in the meantime, falls into her lap accidentally. This is very frustrating writing. I feel like it's somehow violating some unwritten rules of setup and payoff to have Galadriel repeatedly just
happen to be in the right place at the right time so she can resolve everyone else's subplots.
It’s too bad you found no redeeming qualities in the storytelling. I can’t help but connect that to high expectations and shitty fan boy culture creating biases.
I think I've mentioned before that I'm not keen on the growing prominence of fanboy culture and "criticism" in today's society. The scope of their criticisms more often than not tend to be narrow and superficial, as they mainly complain about things like "plot holes" and lore accuracy, even as they lavish excessive praise on cool action scenes and badass characters they can see themselves being as a power fantasy. They've also grown increasingly reactionary in recent years, and are more and more lashing out at increased racial diversity and female characters that don't know their place (the idiot that junker linked to is an excellent example of this). Even before this show came out, I was deeply dismayed by the overwhelmingly toxic and unbelievably mask-off racist response it was receiving online, and I was determined to give it a fair chance and criticize it for substantive flaws rather than fanboy nitpicks. Like I said, I was hoping for this show to be good, and I wasn't prepared to hate it on the basis of something stupid like them daring to cast a few non-white people.
None of the “modern cliches” he described are particularly modern. These character archetypes have existed for literally thousands of years. If they didn’t hit home, it’s probably ultimately the actors fault with the writers maybe making their life harder than it needed to be. I thought Galadriel was one of the better characters in the show though.
You're right that the archetypes aren't exactly new, but what felt modern about their implementation here was just how unsubtle they were. For example, Celebrimbor in the source material is primarily characterized by his altruism rather than his ambition, and it's this desire to help others that Sauron takes advantage of for his own ends. In this show, however, right from the start he's saying ominous lines about how true creation requires sacrifice. It's so obvious, it's so blatant what they're going for, and it's clear that the main inspiration for this characterization isn't the Celebrimbor from the lore, but the more clichéd image of a mad scientist from pop culture. Isildur is the character that suffers the most, though. The show positions him as a hero, but he comes across as a selfish fuckup to me, and I have my doubts about how intentional that was.